Esteban Not sure I understand all the love for Southampton. They are rank, just as bad as we are, which is why they are in a relegation scrap. Like us, Villa and QPR, they are not good enough for the PL, just hoping that there are three teams worse than them. They’ll play the same brand of Championship football they did last season, looking for inspiration from Lallana or knocking diagonal balls over the top to Lambert.
The key area will be on their left flank – if HRK gives Cummings as little support as he did against United, we’ll have trouble. We need Morrison to concentrate against Lambert for the whole 90 minutes, although you have to cut him some slack, due to his age. And we need one of our strikers to drop into the hole and give another outlet to Leigertwood or Tabb. Too often, our central midfield has had to attempt to play straight balls out wide, which get cut out. We’ve got to stop playing in straight lines.
Although we defended poorly against Man U, they did play some really good stuff, which Southampton aren’t capable of. Against their defence, we’ll get chances. It really does depend which Reading team turns up. Southampton are there for the taking, as are we, but there’s no reason why we can’t or won’t score goals against them. Question is, can we score one more than they do?
You say they are as bad as we are-I hope you are right.
FWIW they thrashed Villa and Beat QPR whereas we lost to Villa and drew with QPR which implies that they are better than us.
I'll take anything but a defeat tomorrow however head says a reverse of last season so 3-1 to them and Brian teetering on the brink.
BTW Saints play Sunderland after we do so a very significant part of the season is coming up.
